Investigating How We Feel After Sharing Life Events on Social Media

Sharing our lives on social media has become a norm and now a new study is attempting to find out how we feel when we share our life events through social media and texting, environments that are impersonal and lack nonverbal cues like hugs or high-fives. The study, run by Catalina Toma, an assistant professor of communication arts at UW-Madisons, said that social sharing was very widespread, and it was almost like the event was not even real until one told somebody.

Toma said that people used phones, texting and social media to connect with others in a "substantial way".

The study found that social sharing via media enhanced the emotional tone of the event and sharing a positive event increased its impact, an effect known as capitalization.

Toma added that examining how people shared their important personal events through new media and how they felt as a result of it is a golden opportunity to learn how humans worked.

The study is published in the current issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Source-ANI